


Led Astray

by IdlePace



Series: Catholic Boarding School AU [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Catholic School, Corporal Punishment, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdlePace/pseuds/IdlePace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were caught, like so many times before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Led Astray

Posture straight as dolls, in an orderly short row consisting of two, ahead they stare, afraid to catch the other’s sight. The carved wood smell of the room suffocates them, rampant with chemically sharpened polish. They sit so still, their feet don’t kick in their waiting; both perched in silence on the thin shamefully acquainted bench. A clock with no face and loosened hands lost its purpose long ago in the timelessly hollow room.

The secretary given the task to watch them, snap and report their behaviour if it were to stray, still disregarded them. Her pen scratched along the paper, sliding with the grain of her desk. Glasses hung at her neck, plastic beads in a string to decorate the needed commodity. Her eyes, as poor as a bat without them. It’s her lack of vision they thanked, as their linked fingers under the unsteady planked seat were overlooked.

The long skeletal pinky hooked distraughtly to its opposite: one short attachment to a shaking hand that bloomed bright red the tighter it tried to squeeze the digits together. Breaths they tried to find to calm their minds raised the unauthorized connection, drifting their hands higher with their lifting shoulders and falling further as they sunk back into their skin. Asking them to ignore their still heated breath would be to ask them to recite their entire life from memory, an impossible inhuman task.

Mutually, they needed to exchange words. Succinctly they wanted to escape, but face their punishment now instead of building it further was their only choice for survival.

The secretary cleared her throat, throwing sharp needles down their backs. She raised an eyebrow, examining their faces with predominantly blind eyes, giving them each a long crusted scowl. A sound of utter disgusted cracked out from her dry lips as she pulled back a brittle hair. “Sixteen and soon to graduate. How will you boys survive the real world if you keep ending up here?” Her voice was torn between a croak and a screeching rasp. Her aged fatigue slipped through her clicking huff as she sealed her antipathy.

Squeaking as it opened, the archaic wooden door that had expanded from temperature fluctuation, struggled to shift out of its frame. Panic injections into the veins of their arms, they released any hold they desperately wanted to hang onto.

Strained beady eyes glowered at the teens, visibly detesting the close proximity of the two. A drawn out shake of their balding head and a sigh, the authoritative figure cleared his throat. “Boys, when will you learn?” His question was met without answer as he pointed at the shakier of the two, “Lalna, you’re first. Come in.”

Straining to force away his nervous smile as he stood up from the bench Lalna dared a look back, connecting sight with the other. The sharp tug on the top of his ear jarred him out of his drifting thoughts.

“Come on, I don’t have all day to deal with you two delinquents.” The wide hands twisted Lalna’s ear in their firm grasp, forcing his head to tilt with the angle, “You sit still Rythian. I’ll soon deal with you.” Yanking again the middle aged man pulled Lalna back into the office with him, slamming the old easing door with the taunting brass plate that’s principle of the room was only just lower than the very same word it molded out.

Pressing his hands into his lap Rythian struggled to find an easy pattern of breathing. His once goose bumped skin now pricked up for an entirely different reason as he shuddered with his whole body. He exasperated himself trying to remember the smile that once planted butterflies in his stomach and the touch that made him feel invincible; only moments before, but now he sits cold on the unstable seat wishing they had been more careful.

He waited for it, in his indefinite silence. The scratching pen, the lost clock, they were the only sounds to accompany him in his agonizing waiting game. Rythian didn’t want to make out the voices on the other side of the wall. Comprehending the sound to only be a lead up, he closed his eyes, and continued to wait. The muffled voices had stopped and unearthly quiet formed on the other side. Rythian’s patience was already crushed, fantasizing that the day had never happened, wishing the paired sounds he heard were a bad dream.

A crack, and a cry.

Another crack, and another cry.

Nails dug into Rythian’s palms as he fought to keep himself sitting tall. He held his breath in too long, inhaling in too deeply and stinging his lungs. His teeth ground together, his jaw shut tight to keep his expression from pulling. The screams rung in Rythian’s ears, his once invincible protection melting away with each sound; slowly bricking him into a tomb and cementing how powerless he truly was.

They always went for Lalna’s legs, the most sensitive part of the teen. Nothing else could make him howl in such extreme pain but his legs. Rythian could almost visualize the bent wood striking his pale skin, each cry painting another vivid picture of Lalna’s distressed face. 

He had lost count how times the sounds were repeated, trapped in the mental torment, longing for any words of comfort he could tell himself. He needed anything to bring his mind back from breaking, to keep his head above the rising noises that sought to drown him. Rythian bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes as his head hit the wall behind him, feeling the weaponized vibrations strike through the air as the cries developed into quiet whimpering.

Just as Rythian’s mind was drilled as hollow as imaginable, the wicked sound ended, though the whimpering continued. Inaudible sounds returned and Rythian pushed his body to sit back up, inhaling the poisoned environment’s air.

A click of a door knob and voices were clear again, “And you are to go straight back to your dorm room and you are not permitted to leave until breakfast tomorrow morning, understand?” The tone and words were nasally rehearsed as the voice left the room but the body remained stagnant inside. “And do yourself a favour and stop crying. Only a child cries. Chin up and chest out, no one gives anyone who cries respect.”

A quieted sniff and a break in a thick swallow of saliva before the command was answered, “Yes sir.”

One uneasy step outside of the office, followed by another as balance taxed to return, Lalna stood outside of the door again. His breathing was faint, lost over springing hiccups and smothering sobs, his evident battle to keep himself together was coming apart in pieces. The sleeve of his uniform pressed against his eyes, struggling to wipe away the constantly pouring tears that refused to stop as the back of his hand pushed at his running nose.

Rythian didn’t know exactly when he got out of his seat; only after he could see the blazing red cheeks on Lalna’s face grow more apparent did he realize he was standing. His once ruffled blonde hair now laid flat to his face, sticking to the damp corners of his eyes as other strands pointed in off directions. Rythian had to hold his arms directly at his sides even as Lalna turned to face him. Their sight met again, more water between them than last time, but the spark was snuffed from Lalna’s eyes.

Nothing below the word torture could accurately describe what slipped into Rythian’s heart. He couldn’t reach out, couldn’t comfort, he could only watch as Lalna’s knees bent with his struggle to stand still in one spot.

“You can come in now Rythian.” The voice was stern, almost uninterested as it called from inside the office.

With the little will power that he had left Rythian turned from the sniffling teen, directing himself to the doorway. He knew he couldn’t buckle and had to appear strong, reciting in his head that an emotionless exterior would save them both, lest they be punished further.

Stepping inside and edging the door behind him closed Rythian brought himself together as he lifted his head up, moving to the center of the room in front of the headmaster. The man’s firmly pressed clothing reeked of moth balls while the thin hair he had left swept into a fashion couldn’t fool even the practically visionless secretary outside.

The man cracked his knuckles as he tried to stare the teen down, failing his intimidation as Rythian returned the glare. “How many times will you repeat the same act before you learn?” The headmaster’s lips drew to a grimace, his eye glistening almost with pity. “Do you repent for your sins?”

Supressing more words that he wanted to say Rythian focused to his strength into one: “No.”

“Rythian,” The headmaster sighed as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up his face, “How can God ever forgive you for your sins if you never ask him for forgiveness?” The thin wooden cane twisted around in his grip, the school approved tool that seconds before drove into Lalna’s skin. “You were caught mid act, there’s no denying in what you did. Confess so you may be absolved of your sins.”

Outside, recognizable cries roared up again, Lalna’s tears drenching his voice as his volume thrashed with the religious sisters who argued with him. His words were clear as crystal, begging them to allow him to wait for Rythian. His voice wavered as he pleaded for them to let go, he didn’t want to leave without the other, but as his sound grew harder to distinguish, Rythian knew they had dragged him out.

“Well?” The headmaster’s voice pulled Rythian’s mind back into the room, “You were found with that boy committing forbidden acts, are you going to ask for forgiveness?” The stick twisted in his grip again.

Another guarded breath and Rythian bore his eyes deeper at the man, “I did not sin.”

Taking a step away from his desk the headmaster shook his head, heavily disappointed, “How can you disobey God so rebelliously and still say you have not sinned? You must have a dark evil deep in your heart.” Circling around to stand militantly behind Rythian, the headmaster readjusted his grip on the administrative tool, “Why do you keep doing this?”

With his eyes glued forward and reaffirming his stance Rythian could almost break into a smile. He watched the outside life through the window next to the office desk breathe as he did, feeling the slipping sun crawl into the room. “Why?” Rythian knew he should have held in his chuckle, but couldn’t think of anything worse than what he was about to receive, “It’s because I love him.”

A sudden whip of sharp wood against his back brought out a pained hiss, dropping his shoulders and snapping his head downward. Rythian’s breath stuttered as his feet moved to try and keep him still.

“Boy, you are merely blinded by temptation.” Another followed through swing and the wood cracked along Rythian’s back, the needling pain piercing directly through his clothing. “Do you repent for your sins?” The voice raised itself with the equipped arm, slamming down fiercely again.

“Never!” Rythian pulled his shoulders back bracing for another blow, “I _love_ him.”

Each sigh from the headmaster dug deeper than the last, “How many times…” As he added another snap to Rythian’s back he rubbed at his brow with his less threatening hand, huffing directed air out the side of his mouth, “Maybe this time you’ll see the error of your ways.”

Fixing his posture, readying for the next lash into the rebruising skin, Rythian kept his sight on the outside, watching as the sun hid behind the clouds.

“Well, you can only try.”


End file.
